CockroachDB

Course Objectives

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of CockroachDB's distributed SQL architecture and how it achieves survivability, consistency, and scale.

• Master the deployment, configuration, and day-to-day operation of CockroachDB clusters.

• Confidently design schemas, optimize queries, and manage transactions in a distributed SQL environment.

• Implement multi-region topologies, geo-partitioning, and resilience strategies for production workloads.

• Apply security hardening, monitoring, and integration best practices for production-ready CockroachDB deployments.

Course Length: 2 Days

Course Structure

Module 1: Architecture & Foundations

Introduction to CockroachDB

• What CockroachDB is: a distributed SQL database built for survivability

• Comparison landscape: CockroachDB vs. PostgreSQL, Spanner, YugabyteDB, TiDB

• Use cases and when CockroachDB is the right fit

Core Architecture

• Ranges, Raft consensus, leaseholders, and the distributed storage layer

• The KV layer and how SQL maps onto it

• Multi-active availability vs. traditional primary/replica models

• Node communication, gossip protocol, and cluster membership

Installation, Configuration & Tooling

• Deploying a local multi-node cluster (cockroach start, cockroach demo)

• DB Console walkthrough: metrics, jobs, statements, sessions

• CockroachDB's PostgreSQL wire-protocol compatibility — what works, what doesn't

SQL Dialect & Schema Design

• SQL dialect specifics: SERIAL vs. UUID, sequences, hash-sharded indexes

• Schema design fundamentals: choosing primary keys to avoid hotspots

• Data types, constraints, and indexing strategies

Module 2: Distributed Operations & Data Engineering

Transactions & Consistency

• Transaction model: serializable isolation by default

• MVCC, read/write intents, transaction contention and retries

• Follower reads, AS OF SYSTEM TIME, and stale read trade-offs

Query Optimization

• EXPLAIN / EXPLAIN ANALYZE for query analysis

• Index selection, statistics collection, and cost-based optimization

• Common anti-patterns: sequential keys, cross-range transactions, implicit transactions

Multi-Region Topologies & Resilience

• Replication zones and zone configurations

• Geo-partitioned tables, regional by row, global tables

• Multi-region cluster topologies: survival goals (zone vs. region)

• Node decommissioning, rebalancing, and recovery

Backup, Restore & Change Data Capture

• Full, incremental, and scheduled backups (BACKUP/RESTORE, cloud storage)

• Restore strategies and point-in-time recovery

• Changefeeds for CDC (Kafka, webhook, cloud pub/sub sinks)

Module 3: Security, Operations & Production Readiness

Security & Access Control

• TLS/SSL configuration for node-to-node and client-to-node communication

• Authentication methods: password, certificate, SCRAM, SSO/OIDC

• Role-based access control (RBAC), grants, and audit logging

Monitoring & Troubleshooting

• Key DB Console dashboards and metrics to monitor

• Prometheus/Grafana integration and alerting strategies

• Statement diagnostics, slow query identification, and contention dashboards

• Log analysis, debug zip, and support escalation

Schema Migrations, Deployment Models & Application Integration

• Online schema changes and how they differ from PostgreSQL

• CockroachDB Serverless vs. Dedicated vs. Self-Hosted — when to use what

• CockroachDB with ORMs (SQLAlchemy, GORM, Prisma)

• Connection pooling, application-level retry logic, and CI/CD integration